


impulse control

by followsrabbit



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:22:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followsrabbit/pseuds/followsrabbit
Summary: Chris doesn't believe in regret.(In which Chris regrets a lot.)





	impulse control

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo angst really isn't my thing, but this is my attempt for SKAM Month on tumblr?

Chris didn’t so much believe in regret.

Fuck-ups, yes. Mistakes, sure. But regret and shame and the whole nine, brooding yards—that just seemed like a waste of thought. Life happened. Fuck-ups ensued. Laugh it off, take a shot, move on. If you burned a bridge, you found a bag of marshmallows and toasted a s’more on the flames.

But, as he stood against the Halloween decorations hanging on Noora’s living room wall—William’s too, now—with his best friend, Chris couldn’t untie the knots fraying in his stomach, no matter how many beers he drank.

He had a half-empty bottle sweating in his hand. Across the room, Jonas had his hand on the bare sliver of skin at Eva’s waist. Chris might not put much stock in regret, but he  _did_ believe in winners and losers.

He took another swig of beer. “So that’s still a thing,” he said finally, probably abruptly, gesturing to Eva and Jonas with a tilt of his head. Her auburn hair hung down her chest, longer now that she was growing it out again, over her purple crop top. A long green skirt swayed at her ankles as she swayed against Jonas, a bottle of wine between her fingers.

(She made a hot mermaid.)

William regarded him with an appalling lack of sympathy. “You hooked up with another girl while on a date with her.”

The Eid party had been a fuck-up. He could acknowledge that. At the time, he’d been too fazed by Eva’s confession that she had just slept with her ex-boyfriend, too pissed at himself for messaging said ex-boyfriend for advice, to think past the moment and into the future.

In the moment, hooking up with Emma had felt easy. He hadn’t known, hadn’t cared about Emma. In the future—

Well, within a week, he’d moved on from Emma. Months later, Eva was still dating Jonas.

Chris downed the rest of his beer.

* * *

He knew he shouldn’t watch.

He had a girl, blonde and bubbly and more than a bit buzzed, resting her palm on his chest. Raking her eyes across his lips. He should smirk at her, kiss her, leave with her, be done with it.

But Chris couldn’t stop looking over Supergirl’s head to the far corner where Eva had just swatted Jonas’s hand away from her waist, a livid glare burning from her eyes. She opened her mouth. The pop song blaring from the speakers drowned out whatever followed, but the way she pushed past Jonas a minute later, then out of the living room altogether, said plenty.

He knew he shouldn’t follow her either, but—well. Chris didn’t so much believe in  _impulse control_  either.

* * *

(Three minutes. Impulse control lasted for three minutes.)

* * *

_Déjà vu._

When he’d followed Eva down the hall and into William and Noora’s room, Chris hadn’t anticipated the 2015 flashback factor. But there was Eva, sitting at the foot of a bed, her phone lighting up on her lap, and here he was, standing in the doorway, one foot out of a Halloween party, unable to think of anything better to lead with than, “Here you sit." (He added a smirk for flourish.)

Eva took her time before looking up at him. Her dangling, seashell earrings shivered. “There you stand." 

Then he sat too, because Chris had been wanting to get Eva alone for months now, ever since screwing things up back in June. He eased down on the white comforter; far enough away that his knee didn’t touch hers, close enough that it could, if she’d just move her leg an inch.

“I thought you were avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you?” he repeated, squinted, bullshitted. Yes. He’d also been avoiding her for months now, ever since screwing things up back in June. Watching Eva come to parties with Jonas, laugh with Jonas, hook up with  _Jonas_  against the nearest wall, leave with Jonas… “Nah.”

Eva exhaled. He couldn’t decide whether it sounded more like a laugh or a huff.

“Maybe,” he dragged the word out, half for dramatic effect and half because he didn’t know where he was going with it, “you’re just busy.”

An eye roll this time. He might have gotten a response too, if Jonas’s name hadn’t flashed on her phone a second later.

He hesitated. “Someone’s obviously trying to reach you.”

She didn’t. “I’m not talking to you about Jonas.”

“Right.” Fine by him. Chris didn’t want to talk about Jonas either, not when he could steal her gaze up from her phone and off of her boyfriend’s name instead. So he segued. “You make a hot mermaid.”

Last year, that would have gotten him at least a laugh from her. Last Halloween, he’d have had his hands on her, his mouth on hers, the minute he walked in the room.

Now it earned him another eye roll, another amused breath, and nothing more. Chris forced his grin wider to keep it from slipping.

“And you make a…” she tilted her head to squint at him. “What are you?”

Chris pointed to the name tag peeling from his white t-shirt.

Eva’s eyes dripped down to his chest. Lingered, read, and then, finally—“You’re _God_?” Her laugh sounded fuller this time, more like he remembered it. “Very humble.” More like he wanted it.

“I try.”

Her tongue darted out across her curved, pink lips.

Chris stared.

In his head, he wrapped his arm around her back and splayed his fingers across her shoulder. In his head, she let him. Leaned against him. In his head—

Her phone started screaming from her lap again.

Chris blinked.

“I should go.” Eva’s skirt wrinkled against his thigh when she stood. “Happy Halloween, Chris,” she added, meeting his eyes for a beat, before dropping her gaze back down to her buzzing phone and walking out of the room.

(Two years ago, he’d been the one to leave her stranded on a bed.)

**Author's Note:**

> (Confession: I totally stole Chris's costume from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)


End file.
